Obtain HUD approval of policies and procedures before executing its subrecipient agreements and ensure that its finalized policies and procedures include but not limited to financial management, procurement, duplication of benefits, and monitoring.

Establish adequate financial controls to ensure that its disaster funds are properly classified and allocated to the correct grant and ensure that DRGR drawdowns are conducted in a timely manner.

Provide adequate training to staff on the appropriate classification of disaster recovery activities to ensure costs are accurately allocated and recorded.

Continue to establish a data sharing agreement with FEMA for Hurricanes Hermine and Matthew to ensure that all sources of funding are included in its disaster policies and procedures to prevent duplication of benefits and ensure that the term of the agreement is sufficient.

Continue to negotiate with SBA to extend its data-sharing agreements for the term of the expenditure requirements set forth in public laws or the Federal Register.

Continue to fill its vacancy and assess staffing resources as it prepares for additional disaster funds.

Board 47 partial claim notes that were not boarded into SMART, resulting in funds to be put to better use in the amount of $716,061.

Review any ongoing time-and-materials contracts and if requirements were not followed, remedy the noncompliance or reprocure the contracts to ensure compliance with HUD requirements.

Ensure that all Authority staff members working with procurements and contract administration receive procurement training on applicable requirements, including the requirements related to cost reasonableness, contract types, the number of bids or quotations, contract provisions, and maintaining documentation to show the history of procurements.

Establish and implement adequate record-keeping procedures to comply with applicable procurement requirements, including a register of all contracts with key information and a checklist for each procurement action, to ensure that it completes required steps and receives all required documentation.

We recommend that the Deputy Chief Financial Officer…In collaboration with all involved program offices, develop and implement a sampling methodology that allows for a sample size that reasonably allows for the testing of the complete payment cycle within the PIIA reporting timeframe. Status This recommendation was closed by HUD. However, OIG continues to object to that closure and identifies this as a priority recommendation. After…

Consult with OMB on the appropriate reporting for the untested portions of the payment cycle (such as reporting as unknown) and report accordingly.

Implement a procedure, which ensures that future improper and unknown payment testing that does not test the full payment cycle is reported in accordance with OMB’s guidance.

Develop and implement a plan that ensures the continuity of adequate internal controls over the PIH-TBRA program to detect and prevent improper payments, which can be implemented in a virtual environment. This plan should include how HUD can review tenant files or other information that validates tenant data remotely without compromising PII.

Collaborate with the Deputy Chief Financial Officer to work with grantees in identifying where improper and unknown payments could occur in the CPD-HIM program throughout the payment cycle, to include the risks associated with subgrantee billing, and document this analysis.

Collaborate with the Deputy Chief Financial Officer and use the analysis developed in 3A to ensure that HUD’s improper and unknown payment testing procedures are (1) designed to test the full payment cycle and (2) include the review of documentation that supports that final beneficiaries were eligible, goods and services were received, and payments went to the correct final beneficiaries and were for the correct amount.

Work with the Office of Community Planning and Development’s Chief Risk Officer and grantees to better identify the risks of improper and unknown payments throughout the payment cycle, to include the risks associated with grantees and subgrantees, and consider these risks when performing the CDBG and Homeless Assistance Grant risk assessments.

Work with the Deputy Chief Financial Officer to develop and design a process to ensure that each attribute evaluated during the PIIA risk assessment is evaluated at all levels of the full payment cycle.

Coordinate with OMB to ensure that all of HUD’s data posted on OMB’s PaymentAccuracy.gov are accurate, including data before fiscal year 2021.

Update its procedures to include verifying all HUD data on PaymentAccuracy.gov immediately after the data are published on the public website to ensure that all data are accurate and if not, coordinate any corrections with OMB.